If you think it would be hard to walk away from fortune and fame in order to spend more time with your family, just ask Dana Carvey, who did exactly that in 2002.

“Oh, it was really easy,” Carvey says in a phone interview from his Bay Area home. “I know so many dads who didn’t adjust (to fame) and there’s all kinds of problems from that, like guilt and pain and antidepressants. I was very lucky that I had stand-up and I could adjust my schedule during my boys’ younger years.”

Now, as his two sons approach adulthood — one is in college and the other will be a high school senior this fall — he’s slowly easing himself back into the spotlight, including a supporting role in this fall’s Adam Sandler/Katie Holmes vehicle, “Jack And Jill,” along with an increased touring schedule.

Carvey, instantly recognized as “Saturday Night Live’s” Church Lady and as the nebbish metal-obsessed sidekick Garth from “Wayne’s World” as well as for his dead-on impression of the elder George Bush, will bring his stand-up comedy act to John Ascuaga’s Nugget for three shows on July 14-16.

The cozy setting of the Nugget’s Celebrity Showroom suits Carvey just fine, who prefers the intimacy of a small room over large auditoriums.

“I’m looking forward to this one,” he says. “There’s nothing like a smaller casino theater. You can take a lot more chances. In big rooms, it’s harder to riff because you can’t read if the audience is with you.”

And just because it’s been two decades since he made his mark at SNL, don’t think Carvey will shy away from his most famous characters when he takes the stage this weekend.

“I’ll touch on my greatest hits like Church Lady,” he says. “I feel very lucky to have hits. I mean, I don’t want to see Springsteen and he doesn’t do ‘Born To Run.’”

At the same time, he promises to “filter that same sensibility through modern times, my own experiences.”

“My goal is to get into long, sustained riffs that always have structure, but are improvised.”

Looking back at the first half of 2011 that offered up so much fertile ground to be tilled by comics everywhere, Carvey says, “It’s been an amazing time for comedians.”

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“They say the Arab Spring was a big movement, but then there was the Comedian Spring which has gone unnoticed. First of all, there’s Charlie Sheen. Wow, that was big. And then Donald Trump. Really? And then you have the Royal Wedding, a $2 billion high school prom. Then you’ve got Osama bin Laden. It’s like, ‘Wow!’ There have been like six or seven stanzas all packed into the last 12 weeks.”

On the subject of recent scandals, Carvey offers his trademark take on the technology that brought about former New York Representative Anthony Weiner’s downfall.

“Men always find a way to pervert technology,” he says. “When the telegraph first came out, you can bet within a week a guy was sexting on it. (Imitates telegraph beeps) ‘What are you wearing … (beep, beep, beep) what kind of corset …”

Despite the ribbing he gives public figures, it’s all in good fun, Carvey says, following the old saw that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In fact, he remains good friends with the man whose impression vaulted him to international stardom, former President George H.W. Bush.

Carvey says he is aware that a spot-on impression can negatively affect the public perception of a high-profile figure, like Tina Fey’s take on Sarah Palin.

“It does if there’s enough there, if there’s a spark,” he says, but is quick to add that it’s satire presenters like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert who wield the real power. “They have a huge influence on young voters. It’s no longer just ‘jokey jokey.’”

Which begs the question, when, exactly, did comedians go from jester-like observers on the sidelines to game-changing rock stars? Carvey believes it happened with the first cast of SNL.

“Everyone is a rock star now,” Carvey says. “I grew up watching guys like Tommy Smothers and Don Rickles and Bob Hope, so to me guys like Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, I think those guys were the first bad-boy rock stars. You know like, ‘I might tell you a joke or I might punch you in the face.’ Everyone says inappropriate things now. No one is like Tim Conway, who I think is brilliant, but it’s a different time.”

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Carvey knows a thing or two about following in the shadow of a comedic giant. One of his earliest gigs saw him taking the stage right after Sam Kinison.

“Oh, I totally bombed. He may have been the greatest physical presence I’ve even seen in a comedian,” he says. ”He’d take no prisoners. His scream was so infectious and funny. He’s right up there, I’d say.”

Carvey’s respect for other comedians extends to anyone who has attempted to pick up the mic and do a set under hot lights as strangers look on in judgment.

“Stand-up comedy is one of the few things you can’t fake,” he says. “Jerry Seinfeld is very eloquent about this, how you can take a 10-year-old kid, put him in a movie, and he doesn’t know when he’s on camera or off, and he can get an Oscar, but no human being can be the goofy guy at the party and then stand up and do an hour. Even in the midst of this media revolution, there’s still this primality of just a guy standing there with a mic.”

His fellow comics have equally positive things to say about him.

“I’ve always been a big fan of his,” says comedian Richard Belzer in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal ahead of his July 23 show with Richard Lewis at the Atlantis. “He’s one of the best. I’m sure he’ll be great whoever he is the week he shows up.”

Carvey also promises a worthwhile evening.

“I always go all out,” he says. “Even if I was playing the county fair, I always think of every show like my last show. I have a hard time phoning it in.”